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The horde of people offering congratulations and advice to Jason Collins now includes pop star Lance Bass, who knows something about coming out suddenly and managing the response.

Collins, a 12-year veteran of the NBA, made history Monday by becoming the first American professional athlete from one of the major team sports to come out as gay, which he revealed in an essay in Sports Illustrated.

He spend most of Monday fielding calls from supporters, including President Obama and Oprah Winfrey, but he also took time to call Bass after a mutual friend, actress JoAnna Garcia Swisher, suggested it.

Bass and Collins spoke by phone and Bass talked about their conversation on his Sirius XM show, Dirty Pop with Lance Bass,on Monday night.

In 2006, Bass, 34, a former member of boy band 'N Sync, came out in a People magazine cover story, and not entirely of his own volition, he says.

"Basically the magazine said, 'We're doing it with or without you,' so I had 24 hours to decide to do this interview and I did — and I thought it went great," Bass said he told Collins, 34.

But at the time he wished he had a few more days to get more clarity and to consult gay-rights activists about how to handle the response to his declaration, particularly his first media interviews.

"(Collins) has been trying to plan this for a very long time, contemplating if he wanted to do this," Bass said. "In fact, he said he was going to call me months ago but was too scared, because he wanted to tell me."

Bass says Collins told him he doesn't know many gay people because his life has been all about sports and he's had little time for a private life. Bass told him to connect with groups like GLAAD (Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) before doing any interviews, which media organizations are clamoring for.

"He's going to get some really good information before he does these sit-downs, so he doesn't put his foot in his mouth, say something that he's going to regret, because this will live (on) for the rest of his life, and he'll always have this first sit-down to look back on — and he wants to make sure it's good," Bass said.

Once those interviews commence, Bass predicted America will fall in love with Collins. He remembers how fearful he was that people would make fun of him when he came out, and how surprised he was when it didn't happen.